


regrets collect like old friends

by against_stars



Category: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: (presumed) character death (not really), Anders-Warden friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 03:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11027535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/against_stars/pseuds/against_stars
Summary: So in the two weeks since Anders snuck off to hide among the templars marching to Ostagar, Amell has passed her Harrowing, gotten out of the tower, and been recruited into awar.Cosette Amell and Anders, crossing paths at Ostagar. And after.





	regrets collect like old friends

**Author's Note:**

> partly inspired by a tumblr post pointing out that one of the templars guarding the mage encampment at ostagar shares a voice acter with da2 anders, and how it would be just like anders to have dressed up as a templar and walked out of the tower lmao.

It's just Anders' bloody luck that he gets assigned to guard the mages' encampment the day of the battle, exactly when he had been counting on it being so hectic that he could finally slip away and ditch the sweltering heavy armor of his disguise. Why wouldn't it be him? His luck's been too good so far, managing to avoid getting caught by any of the Kinloch Hold templars, only taking his helm off around the ones from chantries in towns the march had passed along the way who wouldn't know him. The plan was really looking like it would pan out. Of course it couldn't last.

Well, there's still some time before the battle. Maybe he can duck out for a quick trip to the bushes when everyone starts lining up and then just fucking rabbit when their backs are turned. Until then, he just has to kill time alongside Irwin or Billy or whatever his partner's name is. Doesn't matter, they're all the same.

He actually manages to get some decent headway in his meditation exercises until the middle of the afternoon, when he catches someone approaching out of the corner of his vision through the helmet, and he raises his hand to stop them automatically. "The mages must not be interrupted," he drones, glancing down to see —

Familiar bright blue eyes, narrowing in suspicion at him. It's all Anders can do not to yelp her name in shock. _Amell_? At _Ostagar_?

Maker's ass, she recognized his voice, didn't she? The helmet covers his face completely, he's secure in that, but if anyone would know what he sounded like of course it would be Amell. And she may be the farthest thing from stupid, but the most generous way to describe her approach to other people would be _thoughtless_. She could very easily blow his cover just by getting curious and trying to interrogate him.

Anders isn't much of a praying man anymore — a year in solitary will do that to a person — but he gives it a good bloody shot now. _Please don't let her say anything. Damnit, Amell, don't say anything. Don't bugger this up for me._

Whether the Maker hears him or not, apparently Amell is too focused on her own intentions to press him. "I _am_ a mage," she says in a tone of utmost reason, the one that's supposed to make anyone feel silly for denying her. "They're from my Circle. I want to talk to them."

"The mages must not be interrupted," repeats Colin or Ronald or whatever, a little irritably. "Their spirits are in the Fade."

She gives them a delicately dissatisfied little pout. "I only wanted to say hello, and let them know I won't be seeing them again after the battle, because they'll be going back to the Circle and _I'm_ a Grey Warden now."

With the cover of his helmet, there's nothing to stop Anders from rolling his eyes, though he has to bite back the scoff that wants to accompany the gesture. Wanted to say hello, his sweaty armored ass. She just wants to show off.

"Regardless, they are not to be disturbed. Not even by Grey Wardens." Eugene or Floyd or something just stands there, hand out to keep Amell from shoving past, which Anders has to admit is pretty perceptive of him to predict.

Amell huffs a tremendously inconvenienced sigh, and turns to leave them alone, though not without throwing Anders another skeptical narrow-eyed glance.

Then the full meaning of her words hit Anders like a pommel to the temple, and he only doesn't sway on his feet in horror because his knees have been locked with tension since he recognized her face. He was so concerned with hoping she wouldn't blow his cover, he didn't even think to examine _why_ she's at Ostagar.

Her clothes are travel-stained in a way that Anders knows must truly bother her, but they're still definitely recognizable as mage robes, not the apprentice shift he's never seen her without. The staff in her hand is more heavily enchanted hardware than apprentices ever get to handle — to Anders' trained eye, it looks rather like one he knows Irving confiscated a few years back, but he can't say for certain. And yes, there on one slender finger, a Ring of Study.

So in the two weeks since Anders snuck off to hide among the templars marching to Ostagar, Amell has passed her Harrowing, gotten out of the tower, and been recruited into a _war_.

A little pang of guilt strikes Anders at the back of his throat at the idea that she'd gone through her Harrowing blind. He had intended to tell her about it, because to hell with the Circle's stupid rules, the test was a kind of torture and no one deserved to go into it unprepared, but he hadn't thought Irving would push her through it so soon. Nineteen isn't the youngest, but it's still very young. Anders assumed she would have a couple more years at least, no matter how talented she was. Maybe he should have guessed that Irving would be eager to get his favorite student made a full mage and turned into a new lackey for him.

And what had happened after that, to get her brought out here? Onto a battlefield? She doesn't look traumatized or distressed — could she have simply volunteered? But no, Irving wouldn't have let her go, not if he'd only just gotten her Harrowed. Something must have pushed the issue. Couldn't Wardens conscript if they had to? Force people to join them?

Andraste's ass. Anders _can't_ let her go out there. He heard plenty of horror stories on the march down to Ostagar about what the templars had read about happening during the last Blight. Even if this wasn't a real Blight, the darkspawn were still truly worthy of nightmares.

And Amell is still a child — being talented, being powerful, those don't change the fact that the Circle hardly teaches real combat magic to apprentices. She's completely unprepared for a battle, she'll get herself killed. The Wardens are going to get her killed.

There's nothing Anders can do yet while in disguise from his post but stare after her as she meanders sulkily away, watching her disappointment evaporate as she distracts herself brushing her fingers against aging pillars and towering trees, looking around with the sense of a grinning tourist. Even as she disappears around a corner, Anders can still picture her poking around the different platforms and arrays of tents, and his throat clenches a little.

Alright. He'll slip out of his armor when everyone is getting ready for battle, and then he'll sneak over to wherever the Wardens are gathered so he can drag her out of there before it's too late.

—

Getting away from the other templars and shedding his armor is easy enough under cover of darkness. Searching for the Grey Wardens unnoticed is harder. They're a lot closer to the front lines than Anders is comfortable with, but he presses on. He can't leave Amell to any of this.

For a second, he thinks he spots her among the regular soldiers — a streak of sudden lightning illuminates a pair of bright blue eyes and dark hair over a pale face. But the soldier turns away before he can get a closer look, and the armor is far too heavy for Amell to ever bother with, so he returns to making his way toward the Warden encampment, moving between tents in a way he hopes looks casual enough not to be questioned. Thunder joins the rain, and the storm picks up harder.

"Where are the new recruits?" he hears one Warden ask another as he approaches, while they double check each others' buckles and adjust their weapons.

"Commander says two of ‘em didn't make it," a third one contributes, and Anders' heart absolutely stops for a moment before she continues, "just the little mage girl."

Oh, thank the Maker.

"She's with him and Alistair at the king's war table. Think Duncan's going to try and keep them out of this one."

Then another voice joins them, approaching from the other side of the camp: "Alistair and Amell have been tasked with lighting the beacon at the Tower of Ishal to signal Teyrn Loghain's flanking forces. Now come," and the clanking sounds of armor start to move out. "We go to war."

Anders holds his breath until he's sure they're all heading away from this part of the camp, then he breaks for the ruins.

—

It all happens too fast. The sound of battle erupts behind him. The sky cracks open and starts to pour with a viciousness that stings of divine spite. Darkspawn seem to crawl out of every corner as Anders tries to make for the tower. If anything, it's like they're coming _from_ the tower.

Maker forgive him. It's too much.

Anders is still not a praying man, but for the second time that day he sends one up: _Andraste, keep her safe. Let the Wardens keep her safe. I can't._

He puts Ostagar at his back, and he runs.

—

His decent headstart gets him far enough out of the south that he crashes for two days when he finally picks an town to stop in. The third day, when he comes downstairs to pay for some breakfast and maybe ask, very casual, about what happened at Ostagar, there's a pair of armed soldiers tacking a poster to the board at the front of the inn.

From the bar, Anders can just make out the spread double griffon of the Grey Warden emblem, and he is immediately too sick to even consider eating.

"Nasty business, those Wardens."

"Got what was coming to them, didn't they? Maker's justice, make no mistake."

"Ooh, that sounds juicy," Anders chirps, forcing as much interested cheer into his smile as possible as he leans back from the bar like he wants to hear better. "What'd I miss about the Wardens, eh?"

The two patrons who had been talking glance up at him from over their tea. "Got the king bloody killed, is what. Betrayed him, dragged him into that fight with the darkspawn down in the Wilds and let him get overrun." One of them spits in disgust. "Paid for it, though. Whole order got wiped out."

The room spins oddly. "Say again?" Anders strains.

"Yep, the whole thing was a massacre. Wardens died to a man. That's what they get for making all that noise about a Blight, just to get the king to take it serious and go down there himself."

Anders — says something dismissive, probably, as casual as he can, throws down a few coins for the meal he hasn't touched, and slips back up to his room in a daze of horror.

Amell is dead. Maker send him straight to the Void. He left her there, and she's _dead_.

—

All of the conflicting information that comes out after Ostagar hurts too much to listen to, getting his hopes up to hear that some Wardens might have survived, then that the crown has a price on their heads. The chances that a novice like Amell could have made it out of that battle alive are virtually nonexistent, so it doesn't take Anders long to just stop listening to the news and simply keep moving from town to town.

It works really well for him, actually. He heals refugees on the road as he travels between cities, he treats disease in brothels and brawl injuries in taverns in exchange for room and board, putting aside some coin for passage to across the Waking Sea, to track down Karl. He even enjoys some time in Denerim, though he bolts as soon as he catches wind of the Landsmeet, sensing that the place would get way too hot for him to stay hidden if there were going to be that many stuffed shirts and guards around. Misses the battle with the Archdemon by miles, and thank the Maker. No need to see the two Wardens who ended the Blight and reopen that wound.

A year and a half after Ostagar, and Anders' longest successful escape seems to be coming to a close. It took this long for the templars to hunt for him seriously because Kinloch Hold closed ranks after the disaster in the Wilds, and maybe that made him complacent.

And of course, spending all that time living as a peaceful, harmless, productive member of society naturally means fuck-all to the ones who come crashing through his room and drag him out again. No, he gets clapped in magebane-laced irons and marched away like a criminal, guilty of having dared to be born. The templars who caught him are very smug about what's in store for him once they get him back to Kinloch Hold the whole time they're travelling —

Which is why he can't summon a scrap of sympathy for them when a storm forces them to take shelter at a nearby Grey Warden fortress and they all get slaughtered by invading darkspawn.

He chars down the last standing hurlock in the room, which may be a rude way to thank them for tearing through his captors but is the only way to get out of it alive afterward, and there's a sudden thunder of footsteps behind him. Another wave of darkspawn?

He turns, fingers still smoking from that last fireball, and as soon as he takes in that it’s not another ambush bursting into the room, it occurs to him just how suspicious the scene behind him might look: three templar corpses, and he a mage, almost literally red-handed.

"Uh... I didn't do it," he offers, with a small shrug.

What feels like half a dozen things seem to happen at once: a flash of black and dark blue streaking across his vision, the sound of a staff hitting the stone floor, and then a crushing weight around his ribs, launched from such a speed that he staggers backward and nearly trips over a corpse.

"I thought you were dead!" the weight shouts at him from somewhere around his sternum, squeezing the breath out of his lungs. "You weren't in the tower, I thought you'd been killed! This whole — this whole damned time!"

So focused is Anders on the bewildering words — why would Amell think _he_ was dead? — that it takes him a few frozen seconds to realize the significance of _knowing that voice_. He'd buried it more than a year ago, along with the memory of the little girl it belonged to, rather than think of her rotting among the tainted corpses in the Wilds. And she's clutching at him now, still shouting reproachfully, drenched from the storm outside and covered in darkspawn ichor, and all he can hear is her voice as it echoed through the stone walls of the Circle, _tell me about one of your adventures! Tell me about one of the cities you saw! Tell me everything!_

"Oh," he says, too overwhelmed with relief to make a joke or deflect her. He brings his arms up around Amell's shoulders — Maker, did she get _taller_? — and squeezes her back, dropping his cheek against the top of her head when she falls silent. "There you are. I was looking for you."

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out with me [on tumblr](http://against-stars.tumblr.com), it's mostly Dragon Age and me rambling or doodling my silly OCs.


End file.
